


How One & One Makes Three

by orphan_account



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Pregnancy, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 21:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1526336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Britta discovers she's pregnant, ducks feel like a worthy substitute for the study group.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How One & One Makes Three

**Author's Note:**

> Written again for a first-times-fic tumblr challenge. Not my ship of choice, but this was fun to write.

Okay, so _maybe_ she could’ve handled this better.

But after discovering there’s a potential tiny person inside you, put there by a man whose disdain for children matches only his infinite ego, what _other_ response is there than ‘drive far away’?

With fingers that are most definitely not shaking, Britta draws a cigarette from her pocket – and yeah, she knows how _that_ would look to anyone who might recognise her. Thankfully, nobody here seems to.

She’s in a park. Parks are good. They’ve got just the right balance of society and solitude, with a couple ducks thrown in for good measure, and she’s pretty happy with the seat she’s on, too – a bench, overlooking the pond. On the opposite bank, there’s a kid ripping bread apart, and Britta watches with passing interest while fumbling, one-handed, for her lighter.

Years have fluttered past since she tried quitting these things. She almost hears Jeff tutting in her ear.

It’s a small blessing that, when she puts the cigarette to her lips, the _last_ thing on her mind is the hot-tub fantasy Pierce had tried to impart with every puff. Pierce himself has been gone so long, his memory’s yellow around the edges: he’s curling paper, a photograph left a little too long on the windowsill.

She’d never expected him to live long enough to see her first kid, anyway, but losing one friend hasn’t exactly endeared her to the prospect of telling her others. From Annie’s simpering coos of congratulations to Shirley’s immediate launch into advisory services, Britta is perfectly capable of picturing _exactly_ how everyone’s likely to react. She hasn’t even told Jeff yet.

Not that she’s scared, per se. Maybe she should be, or maybe the horror of it hasn’t quite sunk in yet, but what’s the point? Coming here has at least let her think.

Burley tobacco dries out her mouth, leaves her pursing her lips to the cold summer air. It’s acceptable to smoke because she’s, what, a month along? Hardly anything, if her dates are correct. She has nothing substantial enough inside her to be damaged by a single cigarette (because she _needs_ one, the way she feels right about now), and there’s still time to take the fast route out.

Britta’s views on pregnancy are the same as her views on vodka shots: do what you gotta do, but do it with dignity. And she’s not against it – it’s a supported cause, bodily autonomy without Republican oversight – but she doesn’t think she’ll be able to terminate this tiny spark. This, which she can’t yet feel. This, which has not yet grown.

She leans back into the bench. The heels of her boots scuff the gravel as she stretches her legs out in front of her, adopting the perfect pose of corporate acceptance. Diapers, formula milk, tiny white bootees to slip over tinier pink toes…

Shit, babies cost so _much_.

But she can see it, even with her eyes tightly shut. That’s the thing. Jeff slipping his arms around her from behind, hands clasping over her bump, the swell of their costly little bundle of joy. Jeff taking their kid around the park, ripping apart bread while accepting sloppy kisses, a life composed of half-each their own. Piecemeal patchwork of vicious intelligence and excellent fashion sense, all from an early age.

Britta hopes it’s a girl. A real daddy’s girl, if this… _pregnancy_ (she has to get used to that word) is going to go anywhere. If the news goes down well and there’s room enough for the pleasure of romanticising.

As she lifts her legs onto the bench, daintily so, she opens her eyes to the world once again – the shitty, park-infested world she’s been cursed with residing in. Beneath the godless blue of the flawless summer sky, people are bustling-busy, finding contentment in their own mediocrity while the patriarchy rages on, attempting to shame her for daring to dream.

Maybe she’ll be able to raise a child able to think for themselves, a nestling far more adapted than she ever was, even if Jeff’s just as damaged. Oh, she sincerely doesn’t need to contemplate _his_ childhood right now.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. They can make another one – another puerility. Design the perfect life for the perfect kid. Should Jeff be down for it, then yeah, Britta’s down for it; they’re _ready_ now. It’s the future happening before her very eyes.

Flicking her cigarette down to the gravel, beneath the edge of a sharp-sided heel, she takes her phone from her pocket with flourish.


End file.
